chinook's entry in the ethnologue

At 07:18 PM 9/7/98 +1300, da Hiasl wrote:
>hi ,=20
>
>for those who don't know the ethnologue is ah info-service
>for language on the internet=20
>
>here's the entry about chiook wawa :=20
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>CHINOOK WAWA (CHINOOK JARGON, CHINOOK PIDGIN) [CRW] 100 total speakers
>possibly including USA, all over 50 years old (1962 Chafe); 17 speakers =
in
>USA (1990 census). British Columbia. Pidgin, Amerindian. Formerly used =
along
>the Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska, between Indian and white, and
>between speakers of different languages. All speakers are now probably
>scattered. Bible portions 1912. Nearly extinct.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>because of i heard something different in this group ,=20
>the number of speakers may not be true and we should tell
>thouse guys from the ethnologue that they shall correct our
>entry , or what are your opinions ?=20

Long before our CHINOOK-L got going, I tried submitting some changes to
ethnologue - I didn't know about Grande Ronde then, but even so I knew
there to have been more to the Jargon than cited in the entry you've
quoted.  I suppose the "nearly extinct" thing was quite valid, but it's
clear that the "17 speakers in USA" in 1990 is way off-base (given the
existence of the Grande Ronde Wawa).  Chafe's 1962 figures - 100 total =
all
over 50 - also struck me as a complete under-estimate.  In the Lillooet
area alone at that time there were in the range of one or two dozen
speakers, if not more, and this would have been the case throughout wide
portions of BC - especially the southern Interior and parts of the Coast =
-
as this was before the modern revival of interest in the "real old
languages" like St'at'imcets and Halqemeylem, etc.; the use of Jargon =
terms
in other functioning languages of the day (Tsh'ilqotin, Carrier, etc.) =
also
was not accounted for.  I wonder where Chafe got his info =
from.........the
Canadian census of the day, BTW, was not collecting native linguistic
information at that time and interest in natives was largely only by
anthros.  A retro-census of the 1950s/60s would be interesting; i.e. an
estimate of how many people spoke it at the time by gathering info from
band councils/researchers as to how many Chinook speakers they each had
back then.......

Getting Ethnologue to pay attention long enough to change their entry is
one thing; formalizing that entry with accurate information is something =
we
should probably all try and work out together here in CHINOOK-L.  All
ethnologue entries are pretty short, so it's not like we have to come up
with a thesis or anything.......

I had a look through Ethnologue at some other entries - Michif, Canadian
=46rench, Pennsylvania "Dutch", etc. and it was really interesting how =
much
they passed over - the many subdialects of Canadian French (Saskais,
Acadien, Franco-Ontarien, Metis French, etc.), Doukhobour Russian,
Hutterite German, etc. etc. as opposed to what they _did_ include
(Cantonese in North America was represented, but without the =
specification
of the origin of the main North American dialect from a specific region
somewhere near Canton; but Punjabi and other long-time North American =
Asian
languages were not mentioned).  Despite its relative comprehensiveness, =
in
other words, it appears that Ethnologue is full of holes anyway......

Regards

Mike Cleven
http://members.home.net/skookum/


Mike Cleven
ironmtn at bigfoot.com
http://members.home.net/ironmtn/

The thunderbolt steers all things.
                           - Herakleitos